


i would fall in love with you all over again

by santanico



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Intimacy, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Shooting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-30
Updated: 2014-01-30
Packaged: 2018-01-10 13:11:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1160118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/santanico/pseuds/santanico
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky gets shot. Steve is right there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i would fall in love with you all over again

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Português brasileiro available: [eu me apaixonaria por você de novo](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5314379) by [Rosetta (Melime)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melime/pseuds/Rosetta)



> in my head this probably takes place pre The First Avenger but it could 100% be in any AU setting including modern AU or whatever floats your boat.

“What the hell were you thinking?”

On the hospital bed, Bucky turns his head and grins, but there isn’t any energy to it. “Nice to see you too, Rogers.” Steve gives him a deep frown and hesitates before reaching out and touching Bucky’s shoulder.

“You could have died.”

Bucky nods. His ribs hurt, maybe. It’s a lot of pain in that area. Steve is looking at him and he looks – angry. Bucky furrows his brows and licks his lips. “Why are you givin’ me that look?” he mumbles, then turns his face away from Steve’s almost judgmental stare. “You make me feel like I kicked a puppy or something.”

He hears Steve sigh, can see him in his peripheral with slight shoulders falling and posture relaxing.

“You got yourself _shot_.”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “You make it sound like I never been shot before.”

Steve tenses.

“I’m kidding,” Bucky assures him with a half-smile. “But I’ve been through the ringer. Been through worse. Sit down.” He coughs, and his body hurts.

Steve slides into the chair next to the bed. “Visiting hours are over soon. And I think the nurse is suspicious.”

“Oh?” Bucky says, lets out a soft laugh that hurts his chest even more. “You bein’ suspicious?”

“No,” Steve says, a slight shift in his tone. He settles. “Just…I think she’s confused why it’s me. Instead of someone else.”

“Yeah, I don’t get a whole lot of visitors.” Steve’s hand rests on top of his and Bucky considers pulling away for a second. But it’s just a warm hand meant to comfort, nothing more. He lets it rest. “You wanna know how I got this sucker?”

“Not really,” Steve says, shaking his head. He squeezes Bucky’s fingers gently. “And anyway, I already got the news from your doctor. Says you got caught up in a fight that wasn’t your place. Thought you only intervened when I was in trouble.”

“Oh Mr. Rogers, do you think so little of me?” They lapse into silence and Bucky stares out the window. It’s an airy day, mid April, and he thinks for a moment about how he had pushed the two teenaged boys apart and then been rounded on by the taller of the two before the other drew a gun. He doesn’t remember much. A flurry of action. His stupid decision to stop two boys who reminded him, in some distinct but indescribable way, of a more fucked up version of himself and Steve.

When he looks back, Steve looks tired. “You can go home.”

“No,” Steve says, voice tight. “I have to stay. At least until they kick me out.”

“I’m gonna have a scar,” Bucky says.

“I’ll…” Steve pauses. “It doesn’t matter.” Bucky smiles. “Bucky.”

“Steve.”

Silence again. A doctor paces past the door and then another couple of nurses glance in. They frown, and Bucky notices over Steve’s shoulder that they’re whispering to each other. He can’t hear them but it’s getting late. He assumes they’re arguing about whether to let Steve stay or not.

The nurses scurry down the hall. No one interrupts them, though there isn’t much to interrupt. Steve runs his thumb over Bucky’s knuckles, not making eye contact. Bucky turns his hand over, palm facing upward, and Steve begins to trace his fingers along the lines on Bucky’s palm, between his fingers, around his barely there nails. Bucky tries to ignore the feeling deep in his chest, the pain that isn’t physical, but it washes over him as he watches Steve and his careful touches, his exhausted eyes. The throbbing is emotional, and it almost drowns out the physical pain of a bullet that narrowly dodged piercing a lung and leaving him for dead.

“I’m glad someone found you,” Steve says into the quiet.

“Me too,” Bucky agrees. They don’t say anything else. Bucky thinks about Steve as he closes his eyes. Steve’s fingers grace over his wrist, touches that prickle under Bucky’s skin and make him wonder about what they could be in a world that was just a little bit different.

Steve kisses him first. How odd. Bucky thinks he must be asleep, dreaming, because that’s what the kiss feels like – air. Ethereal. Words Bucky learned when he was a senior and trying to pay attention so he didn’t have to drop out.

But Steve’s lips are also barely there. Bucky must have dreamed it.

When he wakes up it’s dark outside, the windows pitch black and the light on his bedside table only illuminating the first half of his body, up to and including Steve’s head and shoulders resting gently on his stomach, a hand still in Bucky’s. Bucky rests his head back on the pillow and smiles. It’s way past curfew and Steve is out cold, unmoved by the doctors and nurses whose job it is to shoo him off. Sometimes Bucky thinks he’s lonely, and sometimes he remembers that Steve Rogers makes loneliness seem like an abstract concept.


End file.
